Sunday, August 28, 2016

They take their religion seriously

So when Catholics find fault with your presidential pitch (and your feud with their leader) you are cruising for a bruising come election time.

Much has been made of Donald Trump’s problems with a few voting groups — female voters, blacks and Hispanics, and young voters, in particular. And, to be sure, they are all problems.

But relatively speaking, his biggest problem actually appears to be with a different group: Catholics.

Yes, the man who once feuded with the pope (how soon we forget that actually happened) is cratering among Catholics.

Back in 2012, GOP nominee Mitt Romney lost the Catholic vote by just 2 points, 50 percent to 48 percent. And the GOP has actually won the Catholic vote as recently as 2004 and in 5 of the last 10 presidential elections.

But Trump trails among Catholics by a huge margin. A new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute released this week shows him down 23 points, 55-32.

Trump’s deficits among non-whites and young voters, by contrast, are similar to where Romney and Republicans have been in recent years. The Post-ABC poll, in fact, showed Hillary Clinton failing to match Obama’s margin among non-whites — though not in a statistically meaningful way — while her margin among young voters ages 18-to-29 was three points better.

These are groups, in other words, that Republicans don’t expect to do well with. And they still don’t.

But Catholics have long been a swing vote in presidential elections, and right now they’re swinging hard for Clinton.

It’s also hard to overstate just how significant Trump’s poor performance among Catholics is. That’s because they comprise about one-quarter of voters in the United States (25 percent in 2012 exit polls) and are about as big a voting bloc as non-whites (28 percent) and independents (29 percent).

Hail Mary Full Of Grace, Please Keep Trump In Last Place. As for the Trumpoons, Father, please forgive them because they know not what they do.